Category: Essays and Reviews

Every third Sunday from June to October, the Prospect Park Alliance and the NYC Food Truck Association sponsor a Food Truck Rally in Grand Army Plaza. I finally checked it out today, sampling the best trucks before the event’s end next month. (The Atlantic Antic is in October and one can only handle so much street food. Just kidding. Street food is the best.) The trucks encircle the entrance to the park from 11 AM to 5 PM, but things didn’t really pick up until close to 1 PM. Pictures of the food after the jump. Continue reading →

I remember visiting multiple stores with my mom and grandma as they searched for the perfect reading chair. This was to be my mom’s alone, an investment, something that helped her unwind after a long day of everything that came along with being a single mom with two kids and three pets. At night, she’d sit in the chair in the living room, the room with no TV, and read a book while I played computer solitaire, listening to Green Day on my walkman. As was routine, she’d fall asleep that way, the chair a comfortable lullaby. Catching my mom dozing in her chair is one of my favorite memories of her. Continue reading →

As a spin-off of my previous series An Actual Email I Sent (“series” may be a little strong since I only did it once), here’s an actual email I was sent (please ignore use of passive voice) by my childhood best friend’s mother, who has taken to sending me the occasional state job posting (in hopes of bringing me over to the dark side of applauded inefficiency and “really great benefits”): Continue reading →

After reading a bunch of glowing reviews about the burgers at Ditmas Park’s new restaurant, my roommate and I decided to head down to Newkirk Avenue and give Ox Cart Tavern a try. We were spurred into action after seeing an especially delicious burger during a bad date on The Millionaire Matchmaker; having watched The Cooking Channel all day also didn’t help. Continue reading →

While getting back into the swing of things, I decided to share some actual emails that I have sent to actual people in the past few [actual] days. I consider myself the Emily Dickinson of email-writing and self-induced reclusion. (I think it would be particularly funny for you to imagine that I sent every single one of the following to the same person. I didn’t. But I could’ve.) Continue reading →

My favorite kind of movie is a free movie; this is obvious to all by now. I will see any movie if it is free, mostly because they are fun to write about when they fail spectacularly. Anne scored us tickets to see Knight and Day, the new rom-action film starring Tom Cruise and Cameron Diaz. First of all: all right already with the movie title puns. Maybe I’m just being a jerk because I recently saw Just Wright, but I think it’s completely fair to say that puns involving characters’ names have no place in movie titles.

It would have behooved me to write my review of Moon yesterday, since it was the 40th anniversary of Apollo 11 landing on the moon, but. Well. I wrote about government cheese instead so I think that that’s enough of a memorandum. Despite the seeming impossibility of this request, spoilers are at an absolute minimum since it’s a very spoiler-able movie. Though, I am happy to provide the main spoiler: Sam Rockwell is hot. Sorry! Ruined the ending for everyone! Continue reading →

We went to the Smith Street Fair in Carroll Gardens, a scaled-down version of the Atlantic Antic because we originally wanted to catch the Stinkfest ’09 cheese-eating contest, but by the time we had walked around (and eaten our weight in festival food), we weren’t prepared to wait around. Plus, Mr. Softee was calling our names like the tempting devil he is. Continue reading →

I’ve been keeping an eye out for The Hangover since March. I love Ed Helms. I love Zack Galifianakis (so much so that I didn’t even have to check how to spell his name). I love Bradley Cooper. I love Mike Tyson. (What?) Win-win-win-awkward win, right? I don’t want to spoil the post by giving my coveted rating so soon, but I only give this movie a 70 out of 100. Why did you make me do that, The Hangover? I really wanted to love you. (I’d usually point out the spoilerlessness of my review, but you’ve basically seen the entire movie in trailers by now, I assume, making it sort of impossible for me to spoil anything.) Continue reading →

Are you ready for another more-or-less plotless (and purposely spoiler-less) review? This weekend, I saw the new Disney Pixar animated feature Up (which I keep typing as UP and should therefore be officially changed) about an old man and his Wilderness Adventurer (read: boy scout) friend floating a house to South America with balloons. It only gets better from there. Continue reading →